Articles of sports apparel like shirts, jerseys, pants and shoes are usually manufactured as ready-made, mass-produced finished products. They are usually not custom tailored according to measurements, but rather generalized according to anthropometric studies. Thus, sports shirts for example are available in certain fixed sizes like for example “L” (large), “M” (medium) and “S” (small), wherein a differentiation in size and cut is often made between shirts for men and women. Likewise, sports shoes are available in fixed sizes too. For example, according to the continental European system used in France, Germany, Spain and most other continental countries, the shoe size in so-called Paris points is 3/2 of the last length in centimeters. Additionally, a differentiation is sometimes made between different shoe widths.
In the area of professional and ambitious amateur sports, it is known to customize sports apparel up to a certain point. Such customization is often done based on a static analysis, e.g., length and size measurements of the athlete's body. Based on those measurements, customized sports apparel, for example a soccer shoe is then manufactured.
Dynamic analyses, while being rare, are known as well. To this end, the athlete is equipped with one or more sensors which are, e.g., attached to one or more of the athlete's limbs and engages in a typical athletic activity. The gathered sensor data is then processed and used to manufacture customized sports apparel. Alternatively, a video analysis of the athlete engaging in the athletic activity is made. To this end, a video of the athlete is recorded and analyzed. Based on this analysis, a customized sports apparel is then manufactured. For example, a runner may be filmed while running on a treadmill. An orthopedically trained person may then extract information (e.g. supination and pronation) from the filmed video which is then used for manufacturing a customized running shoe.
However, the mentioned techniques for customizing sports apparel have several disadvantages. They are rather expensive as additional equipment like special sensors, video cameras, treadmills, etc. are needed. Furthermore, these techniques require personnel trained in sports medicine and/or orthopedics. More-over, as such analyses are usually performed during a limited amount of time, they do not show long-term evolution of the athlete's performance characteristic and are prone to day-to-day variations in such performance characteristics. Furthermore, as they are performed in a laboratory-like environment, such analyses do not provide any context information, i.e. information about the environment in which the athlete typically performs sports activities.